The present invention relates generally to devices which are designed to protect door jamb assemblies, and objects being moved through openings in which such door jamb assemblies are installed. The invention relates particularly to devices which are temporarily and removably mounted to doorjamb assemblies during periods when the door jamb assemblies are susceptible to elevated risk of damage.
Door jamb assemblies are assembled at manufacturing locations. Such door jamb assemblies require protection during shipping in the ordinary stream of commerce.
Individuals, families, and businesses commonly move from one location to another. Typically, a wide variety of belongings are moved with them. In addition, individuals, families, and businesses purchase items which, at times, can be large and bulky. These items, such as appliances, furniture, office equipment, and the like, are used to aid and assist the purchaser as well as provide for a comfortable and workable environment.
Moving such bulky and/or massive items can be a challenge. Due to the great weight of many such items, in combination with their sometimes awkward size, moving such items through a doorway can entail significant risk that the item being moved through the doorway will impact upon the door jamb assembly. This contact and engagement can cause damage not only to the door jamb assembly, but also to the item being moved through the doorway.
Similarly, during construction of new buildings, or renovation of buildings, exterior door jambs and door trim, namely door jamb assemblies, are typically installed about the door openings early in the construction process, and well before the remainder of the construction process is completed. Further, it is common to install a temporary door slab during the construction process, so the door can be closed and locked to exclude unauthorized entry to the building during the construction period.
In addition to security considerations, such early installation of a door jamb assembly facilitates installation of building materials which interface with, or otherwise cooperate with, the door jamb assembly. Also typically, once the door jamb assembly is installed, other building components are assembled to the building in cooperation with the jamb assembly such that subsequent removal of the jamb assembly for repair or replacement is an especially costly, and therefore undesirable, undertaking.
Where a door slab is installed, and is used during the construction project, it is common to install a temporary door slab of low aesthetic quality, whereby any damage done to the door slab is generally inconsequential. A permanent door slab is then installed in place of the temporary door slab as one of the last items in the construction project. By so withholding installation of the permanent door slab until very close to the end of the construction project, the chances for damaging the permanent door slab, as part of the construction project, are greatly reduced.
Indeed, during the ongoing phase of the construction project, a wide variety of workers, inspectors, owners, and other affected parties enter and leave the premises. During such ingress and egress, such persons move a wide variety of construction materials and equipment, such as table saws, tool boxes, air compressors, air hoses, extension cords, lights, ladders, dry wall, molding, appliances, cabinets, flooring, and the like, through the limited cross-section opening at the doorway. Inevitably, the door jamb elements and/or door trim elements of the finished door jamb assembly are struck, rubbed, abraded, or the like, and thus damaged by the materials and equipment passing through the door opening. In addition to the damage caused to the door jamb assembly, such contact can also cause damage to the items being moved through the doorway.
All the above disturbances to both the door frame, and materials and products potentially damaged by impact with the door frame, typically applies to all the door frames at all the respective doors in the building. Consequently, as the completion of e.g. the construction project, or the moving project, or the bringing in of newly-acquired items, approaches, the damaged door jambs and/or door trim must typically be repaired. In some cases, the repair can be done on site, while the respective jamb assembly remains assembled to the building.
Normally, however, such repair entails removing the damaged door jambs and trim from the rough opening and replacing them with new door jambs and trim. Such repair or replacement, whether on site or off site, must be done by skilled craftsmen. As suggested above, where an exterior doorway is to be repaired, removal of the door jamb assembly can involve removal of selected portions of siding and sheathing around the door opening, which seriously disrupts the smooth flow of completion of the construction project. In addition, even temporarily removing the jamb assembly significantly increases the cost of securing the building against unauthorized entry while the door jamb assembly is removed from the door opening.
In addition to the above, the damage may or may not be susceptible to repair, whereby the damaged door jamb assembly may have to be replaced by a new door jamb assembly.
Even if the jamb assembly can be repaired, such repair entails considerable time and expense, not to mention inconvenience to both the building occupant and the contractor responsible for the construction project. Further, the quality of the repair is commonly less than the quality of the original factory manufactured product.
The longitudinal edges of the door jamb assemblies, including door trim, are thus particularly vulnerable to damage when contacted by materials or equipment. In order to protect such edges, a guard may be placed over the finished door jamb assembly until the construction project, or moving project, or other project which elevates the risk of damage to the door jamb assembly, has been completed.
A substantial variety of guard structures are known for protecting door jamb assemblies. While certain known temporary guard structures have certain beneficial features, certain such structures do not accommodate closure of the door slab while the protective guard structure is installed on the door jamb assembly, thus failing to prevent unauthorized entry.
Other known structures accommodate closure of the door slab while temporarily reducing clearance between the door slab and the guard on the jamb assembly, by imposition of the guard structure into the clearance space normally available to accommodate modest mounting tolerances normally in effect for mounting the door slab in the jamb assembly. Thus, such other structures require the door slab to share the normal clearance space, between the door slab and the jamb assembly, with the thickness of the guard. In such instance, any variation from target clearances about the opening, with respect to the door slab to be installed therein, when the jamb assembly is fabricated, or any tolerance-type variation in the door slab or the jamb assembly, are exaggerated by the reduced magnitude of the nominal clearance between the door slab and the jamb assembly, which increases the potential for difficulty in actually getting the door slab to close on the opening.
One can, of course, specify/design an increase in the clearance between the door slab and the jamb assembly in order to allow for the thickness of the guard structure. However, such increased clearance between the door slab and the jamb assembly remains, as an excessive clearance, when the temporary guard is removed, whereby the user of the building can perceive the door slab as being too loose, not properly fitted to the jamb assembly. Thus, in conventional technology, the promise of a temporary guard wherein the door slab can be closed on the opening with the guard installed, is accompanied by excessively close clearances with the temporary guard installed and/or excessively wide clearances when the temporary guard is removed.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide a temporary door jamb assembly guard, and a door jamb assembly so guarded, wherein a door-side leg section of the guard extends along the door arresting surface of the jamb assembly.
It is another object of the invention to provide a temporary door jamb assembly guard wherein an outer leg section of the guard, extending from a central section of the guard, has a substantially greater length than a door leg section of the guard.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide a temporary door jamb assembly wherein the outer leg section comprises a resiliently cushioning nose member extending, along an arcuate path, outwardly from an underlying trim element at the outer surface of the door jamb assembly.
A further object is to provide a temporary door jamb assembly guard having a transition section between the central section and the outer section, wherein the transition section preferentially transfers forces exerted thereagainst, e.g. by impact with articles moving through the doorway, away from the door opening and toward the door jamb and/or the brick mold, or equivalent.
A more specific object is to provide such temporary door jamb assembly guard, having transfer webs, or other support structure, receiving such forces from the transfer section and transferring such forces to underlying elements of the door jamb and/or trim element at locations displaced from the transition section.
It is still another object of the invention to provide a method of temporarily protecting a door jamb assembly, including installing, on the jamb assembly, a guard having a door-side leg section which terminates in the vicinity of the door arresting surface of the jamb assembly, without interfering with typical clearance between the door slab and the jamb assembly when the door slab is closed on the doorway opening.
Still another object is to provide a jamb assembly guard, and method of use, the jamb assembly guard having a central section, an outer leg section, and a transition section between the outer leg section and the central section, and further optionally including support structure underlying the transition section, which support structure transfers forces, which are imposed on the transition section, to underlying surfaces of the jamb and/or a trim element.